The "To Read" Pile

I have more books in my “to read” pile than I ever thought possible. I love to read, but with an increasingly busy schedule, I find I have less and less time to do this thing I’ve always loved.

When I was a child, my mother would take my brother and me to the newly constructed mall in our town and give us a choice: bookstore or toy store. I never picked the toy store. (Right…uh huh… sure, you say.) Really. Never. My brother’s picks were about 50/50. I relished bookstores the way most kids relish the candy isle at Target or, well, the toy store. I still remember that bookstore, and the kids/young reader/young adult section in the back. I remember the joy of picking out a book. I remember graduating to “grown-up” books, too. I loved horror and fantasy. Some of my first adventures into adult books were Stephen King and Tolkien.

I’ve been a collector of books and an avid reader since then. (Well, except for that stretch called college and grad school, where I read a lot of text books, and that short stretch just after grad school, where it took awhile to remember how much I love reading.) Now I read with a different eye. Don’t get me wrong, I read for pleasure, but I also read to learn about my craft and my genre. I read critically many times, and find that a book has to be very, very good for me to really enjoy it. My “to read” pile is too big, partly because I find it hard to go to a bookstore without buying a book, and second because I’ve filled my former reading time with writing and learning my craft.

It’s that learning about my craft aspect that most recently increased my “to read” pile significantly. I made a trip with a gift card to a bookstore that was closing and had 40% off paperbacks. I took the advice of an Affairs of the Pen friend, and purchased books by several of the recommended authors in the SEX BETWEEN THE PAGES: UNDERSTANDING AND WRITING SEXUAL TENSION class I took with Mary Buckham. These authors are supposed to be very good at sexual tension, an area in which I also hope to excel.

Here’s who and what I purchased:
Jenna Mills – Killing Me Softly
Angela Knight – Master of Swords
Lori Foster – Murphy’s Law
Stella Cameron – Body of Evidence
Linda Howard -- Kiss Me While I Sleep

Now if I’m reading these to learn, I need to get started. Which one first?

Macy